Annie Dillard describes two kinds of seeing. The first kind of seeing is like taking pictures with a camera, moving from shot to shot, reading your light meter. In the second kind, you become the camera, and your body’s shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on you. To see … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“Shall this leave us bitter? Or better? Grieve. Then choose.”
“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s description of heroism looks simple: heroes have strong values; they don’t listen to doubters. But Emerson’s essays can be described as collections of complex ideas. He also says that heroism “has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature” (177). If you are hoping to find … Read More
“But memoir is neither testament nor fable nor analytic transcription.”
So, then, what is memoir? A memoir should “lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver wisdom.” In other words, the writer’s story needs to illustrate a point. Rather than simply telling us what happened, the writer should tell us why what … Read More
“Putting together a novel is essentially putting together the lives of stranger I’m coming to know.”
As it turns out, writing nonfiction stories is not very different from writing fiction for Ann Patchett. The title essay for this collection describes how she puts together an understanding of the life of the stranger who comes to stay in her house during the first months of the COVID-19 … Read More
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…”
“Be curious” is the advice that I am hearing nearly every day. It’s coming from a wide range of sources: Judson Brewer (in Unwinding Anxiety), Ollie Dreon (in his blog for college instructors), Kristin Neff (in Self-Compassion), and Ted Lasso (a TV series). … Read More
Best of 2021: Book Prescriptions
As we finish this difficult year, I’m wondering how I can thank my readers for sticking with me. Blogs can’t offer hugs, a place to go scream, a few extra hours of sleep, or stiff drinks. However, I can prescribe books that can help those who have this year’s Common … Read More
“I have thought about this a lot, and I would like to know – I really would like to – when does a person actually choose anything?”
“And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage.”
When you are writing, do you think “This is great!” or do you think, “I shouldn’t have put this off. It’s a mess. I’ll never get it right.” Too often, I find it easy to be with the large number of people who are critical of themselves when they write. … Read More
“He was committing the beginner’s error of inserting his own agenda into the poem, instead of drawing elements out of the poem and then cautiously blowing on them until they started to flame.”
This sentence made me stop to wonder if Knausgaard was telling his readers they shouldn’t come to his novel with an agenda for what it should be like. If so, that’s a good start. I would go further, though, and say that this book is not for those who expect … Read More
“The island where I live is peopled with cranks like myself.”
The essay “Teaching a Stone to Talk” opens with a description of cranky man named Larry who does, in fact, try to teach a stone to talk. Several times a day, he takes a certain stone off his shelf, removes its cover, and gives it lessons. This light-hearted story leads … Read More
“To cause paralyzing anxiety, is the dream of power. . .”
Is this true? To have power, do you need to make everyone feel anxious? According to the author of this essay about Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the answer is “Absolutely.” The play is about an exiled Duke who wants to return to power, even though he has no army, … Read More
“I’m more interested in the intangibles that produce good writing – confidence, enjoyment, intention, integrity.”
In the 30th Anniversary Edition of this classic book on writing nonfiction, William Zinsser describes how his priorities have evolved over the decades. Known as an advocate for clear, “uncluttered” writing, in his later years, he grew to value “humanity and warmth” even more. As every writing teacher would … Read More
“A black dream weighs upon me like lead, / For my foreordained death is approaching, / and great wars and great fires lie ahead.”
The great Russian poet Alexander Block wrote these words in 1902, when he was 22 years old. It seemed as if he knew that in less than 20 years, he would die of heart failure brought on by malnutrition. He lived through Russian revolutions in 1905 and 1917; he … Read More
